Independent Photography Festival Opening

Text by Kate Forsyth
Photos by Andy Donohoe
It was Melbourne to a tee at Monday night’s inaugural Independent Photography Festival (IPF) photo prize and opening night. Welcoming us to Brunswick’s Tinning Gallery was a graffiti covered laneway, decorated overhead with lights made of coloured milk cartons.

Inside the gallery, I found an intensely interesting and rather cool event, filled with more than 100 photographic works of art, several hundred good looking people, some free beer and one set of grandparents.

The high ceilinged white walls of Tinning Gallery were covered with photos capturing quite a range of subject and style; the open mouth of a wolf, a battered woman, bats in flight, a blood covered bald man, the naked nether regions of a man in a bar surrounded by a duo of hysterically laughing ladies, trains, arty boob shots, porny boob shots, a couple of bums, a woman’s thigh in cut offs, sky divers, a dog with a boner, landscapes natural and urban, a sleeping homeless man with a gun being pointed at his head.

There was a lot to take in.

Not surprisingly, the images I immediately recall are the more shocking ones – dicks, tits, violence, dog boners - which aren’t necessarily the ones I’d choose to adorn my living room walls (all works can be purchased). There were a lot of beautiful, non-shocking shots too that are equally worthy of mention, if I had a better memory.

Wanna get involved? Well you can as there is a Peoples’ Choice Award. Head to the gallery (29 Tinning Street, Brunswick) until Saturday 7 April to check it out, and cast your vote. In this modern day, you can of course also vote online – www.independentphotographyfestival.com – with the winners being announced at the IPF closing party at The Gasometer Hotel on Sunday 8 April from 5pm. There’s also a bunch of other events on as part of the festival, so pop on out to some of them in support of IPF on its maiden voyage. Chop chop!

Lastly, I should probably disclose that my sister and the co-pilot of this blog has a piece of her work in the exhibition. And yes I did vote for her, but not because of familial duty, but because her work is fucking great. Good day.